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  <title>BBC NEWS | Technology | Boom times for hi-tech criminals</title>
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  Boom times for hi-tech criminals
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                        By Mark Ward 
                    
    	  
  	
    
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                        Technology Correspondent, BBC News website
                    
    	  
  	
    
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      Starting a career as a cyber criminal got much easier in 2007.
    	  
  	
    
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So say security experts looking back on 12 months in which hi-tech gangs took control of the net's underground.

    	  
  	
    
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The economy supporting these groups has matured so much that now everything from virus-writing kits to spam-spewing zombies are available for rent or hire.

    	  
  	
    
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This has helped to fuel, say security professionals, rapid growth in the methods criminals use to catch out PC users and steal saleable data.

    	  
  	
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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"2007 was a fairly interesting year," said Joe Telafici, vice president of operations for McAfee's Avert Labs, "cyber crime continued to fuel most of the security attacks we saw."

    	  
  	
    
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It was a year, he said, which saw the effective extinction of young hackers who wrote viruses and other malicious programs for fun. 

    	  
  	
    
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Now, he said, Windows malware was all about money.

    	  
  	
    
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Some attacks, such as phishing runs, were clearly about stealing cash from victims either from a credit card or bank account. 

    	  
  	
    
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But, he said, many others that looked more innocuous were done with money in mind. For instance, he said, trojans placed in banner ads that try to hijack a home PC were all about getting hold of resources that can be rented out for a fee to spammers or other net-based criminals.

    	  
  	
    
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"There's a real eco-system built around this," he said.

    	  
  	
    
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Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing said the tool of choice for many hi-tech criminals was the botnet - a collection of hijacked home PCs.

    	  
  	
    
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"Botnets are now a well-organised tool," he said. "They are at a point now where they are creating smaller botnets from larger ones."

    	  
  	
    
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This was being done, he said, because like all businessmen criminals were keen to make the most of their assets.

    	  
  	
    
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2007 saw news break about one of the biggest botnets ever created. The network got its name from spam e-mails sent in January that capitalised on interest in a series of severe European storms to infect a large number of Windows PCs.

    	  
  	
    
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Successive spam campaigns added to the numbers of machines in the Storm botnet and, though estimates vary, many believe it was made up of more than 1 million machines.

    	  
  	
    
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A ready market for the buying and selling of time on a botnet and the tools needed to put it to good use had sprung up, said Mr Henry.

    	  
  	
    
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"Commercial exploitation has brought the real value of these tools to the vast majority," he said.

    	  
  	
    
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One of the most widely known tools was the MPack kit which was created by a Russian hacker gang. Anyone buying it got included in the price a year of technical support that updated them with the latest vulnerabilities so it could be used time and again for attacks.

    	  
  	
    
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But, said Mr Telafici, this had created problems for some makers of malicious software. 

    	  
  	
    
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"One kit developer recently threw in the towel because they could no longer get the margins they used to," he said.

    	  
  	
    
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"Instead they opened up the source and gave it away. There were just too many players in that space, it's too crowded."

    	  
  	
    
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This busy market was driving innovation, said Simon Heron, managing director of Network Box.

    	  
  	
    
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"We've seen attacks move away from sending e-mail with poisoned attachments to groups doing drive-by downloads," he said.

    	  
  	
    
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Some of those that used to send huge numbers of phishing e-mails were now indulging in "spear phishing" which brought together lots of bits of data to make the messages they send look much more convincing.

    	  
  	
    
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Mr Heron said he had seen campaigns targeted at a few hundred people such as the senior managers in a large firm. 

    	  
  	
    
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"It's just fascinating seeing that this is happening," he said.

    	  
  	
    
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The move away from the old attack vector of e-mail meant troubled times for users, he said.

    	  
  	
    
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"The bad guys are becoming more sophisticated and that means its becoming more difficult to stay safe," he said.

    	  
  	
    
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Summing up Paul Henry from Secure Computing said 2007 was the year that hi-tech crime became firmly established and entrenched.

    	  
  	
    
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"I see no end to this," he said, "until we effectively reduce the value of personal information to the point where for the hackers it is useless."

    	  
  	
    
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Story from BBC NEWS:<br>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/7154187.stm<br>
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Published: 2008/01/02 09:32:37 GMT<br>
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